


Room In Your Arms

by talkingtothesky



Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Kissing, Multi, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2015-08-14
Packaged: 2018-04-14 16:00:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4570650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talkingtothesky/pseuds/talkingtothesky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Continuation of <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/4468694">Room In Your Heart For Two</a>. Sam has his worst Test Card Girl nightmare to date. Gene and Annie rush to comfort him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Room In Your Arms

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dana/gifts).



> Happy Birthday, Dana! Have some Gene/Annie fluff which turns into Sam!angst.

Annie glances over at him while they're watching telly. Sam's fallen asleep, curled up on the couch. Gene waves at her, and she smiles.

 

And _keeps_ smiling, like she hasn't anything better to do with her evening. She's a pretty gorgeous lass at the best of times but when she smiles there's no avoiding it. It's as though the whole room warms up a few degrees, and the dimples in her cheeks deepen.

 

"Come and sit in my lap, pet." Gene offers, keeping his voice low so as not to wake Sam.

 

Annie quirks an eyebrow. "You think I'm that easy?"

 

"When you're looking at me like that, you want _something_."

 

She puts away her grin and purses her lips instead, pretending to think very seriously about it. Then she shrugs, lifts herself up on her arms, straightening her legs from where they have been tucked underneath her. She keeps a careful eye on Sam as she tiptoes across the room to Gene. He lets out a pleased little growl as she settles her bum on his thighs, her own legs dangling over the arm of the chair. Annie presses a finger to his lips to silence him, so he nips at it with his teeth, curving his fingers around the back of her hand so he can lift it and kiss the inside of her wrist. She wrinkles her nose at him and flicks him with a fingernail to the forehead. This kind of insubordination is so not on, and very much her style. He'd known it from the time she called him _Gene_ with that gloating smirk in the pub on their first undercover op together.

 

When she kisses him, it's anything but proper. Sam's often frenetic, pushy, but Annie dips her tongue right in there and tries to make him cough. Gene winds his arms around her waist and gives back as good as he gets. They kiss for a long while, deep and unhurried, and Gene realises the game's definitely on tonight if he wants it. But just as he's gliding his fingernails up past her knee, considering peeling down her tights, there's a whimper from the couch. They pause, lips parting with a wet pop. Gene expects to see Sam glaring at them, but he's still asleep, hair sticking up all over the place. He has rolled closer to the edge, dangerously close to slipping onto the floor. His fingers are twitching. Gene noses at Annie's cheek, tries to go on kissing, but her womanly intuition has clearly sensed something, because she's twisting in Gene's lap, attention on Sam. Sure enough, he makes another frightened noise and then starts to talk in his sleep.

 

"No, no, go away, no! _This_ is my home I'm not going back." Sam mashes his cheek into a cushion, fingers latching onto a corner and squeezing. "Hey, no! Of course I still love her, how do you even have -"

 

Annie slides off Gene's legs and goes to her knees on the carpet in front of Sam. She sets a gentle hand on his shoulder and murmurs "Sam, darling, you're having a nightmare."

 

Gene keeps back. He knows from experience that looming over Sam when he's in the middle of one of his fits is a bad idea. His nose set crooked after Sam broke it.

 

"Mum, no! MUM." He rears up after that, arms whirling as he sits up straight, eyes darting around the room, unseeing.

 

Annie, bless her, knows what to say. She's done this enough times before. "Sam, it's 1973, I'm Annie, Gene's here, you're safe."

 

Her hand on his cheek calms him. Gene grimaces - when he tries that Sam usually flinches away. "Just a dream." He breathes, staring into Annie's eyes.

 

"Yes, that's right, just a dream." She offers him a wobbly smile.

 

He slumps against Annie and sobs into her shoulder. Annie rubs his back and while Sam can't see, casts a wide-eyed look at Gene.

 

Off her look, Gene stands up, heading for the kitchen. "I'll fetch him some water."

 

While he fills a glass at the sink, Gene listens to the muted voices filtering in from the living room.

 

"She had a _gun_." Sam's saying, while Annie makes soothing noises. He tries to give them some time to stop acting weird, but the rest of their speech is too quiet, so Gene wanders back in, holds out the drink to Sam.

 

Sam stares at him as though _Gene's_ the one who's crazy.

 

"What is wrong with you? I just saw an eight year old girl shoot my mother in the head, I need something stronger than water."

 

Gene blinks at him, Annie gasps in shock. "Right." Gene says, putting down the water and going over to the whiskey cabinet. He pours Sam a triple, sets it in his upturned palm like a bumble bee daring a Venus flytrap. Sam clenches his hand around it, throws it back like it's water. Gene winces.

 

"Ok, steady on." Annie laughs nervously, prying the empty tumbler from Sam's grasp. Brave girl.

 

Just then a round of applause breaks out from the television in the corner - some new talent show just wrapped up, credits scrolling over the screen. Sam jumps in Annie's grasp. "Turn it off!"

 

Gene strides across the room and flicks it off. The box goes dark, crackling with static.

 

"No, unplug it!" Sam demands, sounding frantic.

 

Gene obeys without question. It wasn't like they were watching it anyway. "Anything else, Princess?"

 

_"Yes."_ Sam replies, tightly.

 

Gene looks at him warily. He doesn't fancy being told to hunt down an imaginary blonde girl for imaginary murder in the future.

 

"Hold me." Sam grits out, apparently ashamed of himself.

 

"Oh, Sam." Annie says, soft and sad.

 

Relieved, Gene plonks himself down on the sofa and wraps his arms around Sam's shoulders, dropping a kiss into his hair. Sam tucks his face into Gene's neck, while Annie gets up on Sam's other side and hugs him too. Between them they keep him safe and distracted from the demons in his head.

**Author's Note:**

> (Sam's nightmare is not real in any time period, he really is just having a bad dream.)


End file.
